From the first minutes of the game I could already understand why this one was everyone’s favourite. Palpable atmosphere, and I finally got the people complaining about zero mission and am2r missing that “isolating, lonely, cold” atmosphere of the originals. This is what they were talking about. It's a pretty substantial tone shift, from the station to going back to Zebes. Everything is darker, more terrifying, lonely, and hopeless. Almost like Peace Walker to Ground Zeroes, raiders to temple of doom, or high school to university. It adds so much to the depowering at the beginning of the game, and the contrast to eventually tearing shit up everywhere feels like such a cool progression. You become more comfortable and less scared, and now you're back on your grind!! The main path is more like a corn maze where all the dead ends had corn for you to eat. I never felt like going off the beaten path just got me random power bomb increases, they could be whole ass optional upgrades. It's nice knowing that no matter how much I cheese out the order, I will never get softlocked. I always think I am, but super metroid has me covered. I eventually learned to leave it all to god's plan and explore without worry. The bosses were so cinematic too, seeming so well balanced that I was always reasonably challenged no matter how much e tanks or super missiles I got. I also wanna talk about the dash in this game, and how much I cheesed with it. The dash, the wall jump, the space jump, I did stuff out of order and I LIKED IT. The charge beam was the last upgrade I got because FUCK YOU THAT'S WHY!!!!!! and tell me how the ending made me emotional despite the fact that no one in this series has spoken a word? I love this game a lot, I'm giving it 5 stars, and I'm gonna play metroid fusion next.